Pages
by SeeASea
Summary: Because there must be a reason a "page" can be a sheet of paper or a messenger… After swapping stories for several seasons, a book of Ivan's reflections accidentally falls into Gretel's hands.


Pages

Because there must be a reason a "page" can be a sheet of paper or a messenger…

{Grand Bazaar Gretel X Ivan}

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As the lavender scattered the ground and the summer sun cooled to a tender blush that first year, we began exchanging books. He wanted to know about farming and the things that I found interesting, and I wanted to journey through his collection, which he told me he inherited from his late father. I feared he would find some of the books sappy or droll, which I would either hand deliver or leave wrapped upon their doorstep, leaning on the windowsill, or laid upon their kitchen table. But over the months we would occasionally share a laugh at a suggestion already owned!

Sometimes we would have questions for each other, a word alien or a subject unknown, and sometimes we would sit and discuss for hours. Dirk would join us occasionally, and Ivan would explain the wonders which the new books laid out, the new views of the world. And although at first it seemed more adult to child than brother to brother, the chats we had and my advice and assertion that Dirk needed a brother transformed their discussions. Winter warmed around their fire and the covers of worn, well-loved novels.

Spring, the minty breeze playing upon my face along with the soft sun, found me amongst the fields, in the pasture, on the bridge, outside the café with some new book. By no means, however, should it be taken that I neglected my farm or friends. But times I would have spent lazing about at home found me daydreaming and exploring. And sometimes, when he would leave a book of poetry for me by Dirk or my front door, I would breathe in the sweet old scent of the volumes and dream of romance, of loving hearts… and increasingly, as we talked and learned from each other, as we walked together and explored the bazaar together, as we become even closer friends from the year before, I would dream of him.

So that summer day, the fresh green leaves of the trees glimmering and blue jays swooping low over the cobblestones, when Dirk was puzzling over a few books left upon the table, it was a delight to receive a volume of poems.

"Well, it was either the second volume of this novel, which—have you read the first?"

I quickly peeped at the spine of the novel he held up and smiled, "I've read the first and this second."

Dirk laughed, and then spun around to the table again. It looked as if Ivan hadn't finished his work from the night before, because the ink pot was still open and the papers of the children he tutored were in stacks half graded. His brother noticed, and he said, "He was a little out of sorts last night. Something about the book he had been reading. He went to bed early and then left to tutor Lauren and Cindy without picking up work again this morning…" he tapped his chin thoughtfully, looking at a few volumes spread on the table beside the papers, "Now these were what some of his students in the city were reading… And this one looks like one of yours… So, maybe this one?" He shrugged and picked it up for me to examine.

I happily took it into my hands, feeling the soft cover and opening it to the title page, which hailed it to be "Reflections." Closing it once more, I said, "Well, this isn't one of mine, and I haven't read it yet, so I guess so?" We looked at each other with quizzical expressions, and then we burst out laughing. After showing him a new butterfly, which glimmered with beautiful white and pink wings, and a page in one of his brother's books which showed me the species, I departed homeward.

Late afternoon had steeped the sky an amber hue by the time I had returned home, and seeing that the crops weren't dry and most of the animals were inside, I found a spot in my orchard to nestle in with the book.

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Dirk was in the kitchen cooking spaghetti when Ivan returned home, slowly closing the door behind him and thoughtfully walking up to the kitchen counter. Throwing off his apron, Dirk ran into the parlor and brought back a small cage with a white and pink butterfly in it. Ivan admired it, watching its wings beat, and Dirk explained, "Gretel came today while you were tutoring Lauren and Cindy, and she found what kind of butterfly this is in one of our books! Isn't it pretty? Maybe I'll have to give it to Kevin… Haha, just kidding, just kidding!"

"So, Gretel came today? Did you give her the novel I had out for her?" Ivan asked, walking with Dirk back to the kitchen and beginning to set the table.

"Yeah, it was kinda hard because of all the books you left out, but we figured it out—wait. Did you say novel?"

Ivan nodded, smiling at the thought of the familiar book. He looked up and the smile disappeared, "What's wrong, Dirk?"

"Well, it's just that I didn't give her a novel. I gave her a book of poems… if that counts?" Dirk stirred the stiff noodles and pushed them down into the hot water, and then noticed that Ivan hadn't spoken. Upon turning around, Ivan was gone! He heard rustling in the other room, and then Ivan reappeared, flushed and flustered.

"Okay, um… okay—What did the book look like? What color was the cover? Where was it on the table?"

Disconcerted, Dirk thought for a moment and then replied, "It was a blue book, kind of old and threadbare. It was… oh, it was probably under the stack of ungraded papers. Does any of that—"

Ivan had gone from flustered to anguished by the time Dirk had finished explaining, unsteadily taking a seat and then hiding his face on his crossed arms. Dirk's eyebrows knit together and he sat beside his brother, "What's up, Ivan? Hey, if you really need that book back, she might not have even read it yet. You know? She's a busy girl."

"She might not have read it yet!" Ivan whispered, then again and louder, and then, with more conviction, "She is a busy girl, we admire her for that—Maybe, maybe she hasn't read it yet!"

"Why is it so important she doesn't read it? I mean, is it a bunch of lovey-dovey poems or something?" Before Dirk could question Ivan further, his brother was getting up from his seat and running towards the door.

"I'll be back soon, Dirk, I promise. The spaghetti smells delicious, and you know I wouldn't miss it!" The door closed, leaving Dirk confused and with time to ponder over a pot of cooking noodles. He noticed the butterfly on the kitchen table, watched it flap its wings longingly, and then picked up the small cage. He opened the front door to the warm summer evening and opened the latch, allowing the butterfly to spread its wings and fly free into the open air.

.

I clasped the little book of reflections to my chest, to my heart. Pages and pages of carefully written and scrawled poems, prose, notes, pressed herbs, sketches, unsent letters with my name in the heading and "Love" closing before his name. Not that it didn't contain other scraps of stories and ideas for writing, but towards the end more often than not the products of inspiration from love. The leaves of the trees around me rustled in the gusts of Zephyr Town as the sky blued behind them. I could have sworn I saw the white and pink butterfly flutter by to the pace of my heart beats. The last pages, which, unlike the others, went off the usual lines of the paper, made me dizzy. I could more than believe that they had Ivan's mind whirling too.

Closing my eyes and smelling the flowers of the trees and the crops ripening in the field, I took a deep breath and steadied myself. However, just as I found myself relaxing and drifting off I heard footfalls coming hastily up the steps into the field. I sat up quickly and felt the butterfly beat return, the deeper tints of its wings saturating my cheeks. Ivan, his hair wind whipped and his manner similarly distraught, flew over to me and then froze. The breeze was blowing his waistcoat's ends towards me, the only movement of the moment. My eyes followed his gaze to his book, still treasured up in the crook of one of my arms.

Politely formal and reliably rational Ivan seemed to have been set aside, like the cover of the book I had just read when I gazed upon its pages. One of his hands, a little inky from a lesson with the twins, flew to cover his mouth, while the other reached out for the fence as he staggered back. His eyes, wide with shock, began to show other emotions. I began to stand, and he quickly turned around. The hand which had hidden his mouth ran through his hair, and I could tell as his shoulders rose and fell quickly he was trying to compose himself and figure out the next reasonable step.

I had softly made my way to standing directly behind him when he swiveled around with a sheepish but cool smile; the façade cracked when he found me so close, and when he finally spoke his words arrived shakily, uncertain as a new lamb on its legs, "Gretel, I—I… I haven't seen you today… I…" his voice dropped with his slightly drooping shoulders, "…suppose you have read it…" I nodded gently, yes. His shoulders slumped and he hung his head, and he began to mumble about his writing and dreaming off so while there was work being ungentlemanly.

"Ivan."

He looked up and his eyes were filled with panic, but more importantly, love. I stepped closer, wrapped my arms around him in a familiar hug, and kissed him. After surprise subsided he returned the kiss, but even then, when I stepped back, his expression was perplexed. I tenderly placed the book into his hands and smiled, "I love you too."

Frozen in place yet again, Ivan watched as I ran towards the pasture to put in the remaining livestock. I waved enthusiastically, with a bit anxiety of my own, and watched as he returned it, still disbelieving, underneath the azure sky.

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After an unusually quiet dinner between the two brothers, Dirk watching his brother with a keen suspicion, smile under cover, and Ivan caught up in his thoughts and the beats of his heart, the latter sat down to his table in the parlor and picked up the book he had placed there upon returning, spellbound. He blushed as he looked through the pages, seeing in his mind Gretel reading every word. But, he reminded himself, her reactions didn't have to be ones of repulsion or alienation. They were not repugnant thoughts, simply admiration and reflections on his feelings. He steadied himself with a deep breath, and then he continued to peruse the entries. As he reached the back of the book with the newest entries, he found the pages eager to turn, as when he placed something in between the sheets of paper. In between the last filled page and the next blank one there was indeed something. The grading would not get done tonight, and since it was a break day the next day it did not matter too much. He carefully picked up the blue feather treasured away inside, looking upon it with more wonder than anything he had found in a book before.


End file.
